How does supervised visitation work?

In some rare cases, supervised visitation ends up in being ordered in a divorce or a child custody case for one of the parents. This can take place in cases where the courts feel that the parent is abusive or neglectful of their children.

Supervised visitation can be temporary for some parents during the course of the case. In these cases, the court is monitoring the behavior of the parent during the visits in some capacity. In some cases, the parent could be undergoing counseling or therapy of some kind. In some cases, the parent may have a drug or substance abuse problem in which they are seeking rehabilitation. In other cases, the parent may be undergoing parental training of some kind.

In other case, the supervised visitation can be indefinite. This can take place in cases where the parents abuse or neglect is pervasive. It can also take place in cases where a parent has had opportunities to improve their parenting skills — and the court can be dissatisfied with the progress.

No matter, when supervised visitation takes place, the problem from courts and the parties can be how to have this visitation take place? Also, who pays for the supervised visitation? These are issues that can be problematic as it relates to supervised visitation.

The reality is that the exact way this can take place my vary by jurisdiction and locality. Thus, it’s important to speak to an attorney in your jurisdiction about how it might work in a specific place.

But, generally speaking, supervised visitation can sometimes take place at a courthouse or a location setup through a court. In these circumstances, courthouse personnel are often monitoring the visits to see how they progress. The critique is these visits can sometimes can be short in duration and in-frequent. Visitation at a location like this also doesn’t allow for a parent to take children out to other locations outside of the courthouse. On the other hand, these visits are often paid for through taxpayer dollars and doesn’t result in an expense to the parent receiving the supervised visits. Additionally, for the parent not being supervised, they might feel the children are safer in a more restricted environment.

In other cases, the court may allow a private party to supervise visitation. Private parties can sometimes be specifically designed friends or family members who the judge or the court trusts. In these cases, the visitation is again doesn’t result in a financial cost to the parent. The visitation can also allow for a parent to take children out to recreational places where the visitation can be more informal. On the other hand, the other parent (who isn’t supervised) can sometimes have a concern about well the visits are actually being supervised.

Another option that can be utilized is through private parties or agencies who supervise visits for a fee. In many places, there can be former family services workers, counselors or therapists who will supervise visits and report back to the court. In these cases, there is a fee for the supervised visits. The children can oftentimes be taken to recreational locations where the visits can be more informal than a courthouse, but sometimes this is not the case. The pro to this approach, some may argue, is that it’s less formal than at a courthouse, but more formal than a friend or family member. On there other hand, these types of visits can be quite expensive.